Quitting Coffee: Day 1

photo by Manel

I'm taking the plunge....slowly.  This week I watched my caffeine consumption closely to determine a baseline.  I think the very act of observation has changed my habits slightly.  There's probably a life lesson there somewhere.  It seems that my wife and I can split a ten cup pot of coffee that is drip brewed with 8 scoops of coffee grounds.  That's not the most we've ever consumed in a day, but that's what happened the first half of this week.

So, today I am turning the screw slowly by reducing the strength of the brew but not the volume.  Below is my two week plan to ratchet down.

Days 1-7: Reduce the scoops from 7 down to 1.  Keep the 10 cups of water the same.

Days 8-14: Reduce cups of water from 10 down to 2.

By Day 14, my wife and I will be splitting 2 cups of coffee flavored water.  After that we will switch to water or juice.  I'm glad my wife wanted to try this with me.  It makes quitting easier and let's us make just one pot per day. 

The main difference between what Cherniske in Caffeine Blues: Wake Up to the Hidden Dangers of America's #1 Drug suggested and what I'm trying is that I'm not replacing the coffee scoops with either decaf coffee grounds or some "herbal" coffee substitute.  Cherniske argues that you should find alternatives that tastes like coffee.  But I really think that the love affair we have with coffee is illusory.  We like the taste only after we become addicted.  That cat pee smell should be a warning.  But after we start Jonesing we suddenly embrace all that feline fecal infused fun.  This gross tangent reminds of the very expensive Kopi Luwak coffee which is derived from coffee beans being eaten by the Luwak, Indonesia's version of a skunk, excreted by this Luwak, and then harvested by farmers. Wow!  And we have the gall to judge homeless people for dumpster diving.  At least they're not eating skunk poo. 

I will be observing how things go, but today I'm not sure what to notice.  I slept almost 9 hours last night.  Since I know my body is going to be adapting, I'm trying to sleep without setting an alarm clock.  In the past, this has resulted in me sleeping in and getting frustrated with the lack of productivity each day, which then motivates me to set my alarm.  The reduced sleep requires extra coffee which works great for a few days.  Then I get exhausted and turn my alarm off.  The vicious cycle continues.  I'm hoping this time will be different, since I've turned quitting coffee into a project.  And never underestimate pride.  I don't want to look bad in front of my peeps by wimping out. 

So all is well today.  I will keep a log for each day, but I may only post every few days.  We'll see.  Cherniske asks clients to quit for 60 days.  So if I'm all in, that would mean going two weeks ratcheting down plus the two months non-caffeinated.  Anybody else want to quit with me?